Powerless
by Garcka
Summary: The Gatekeeper is not a position to be taken lightly. The sight of time comes with a vast price that must be endured over and over again. Set in the future. Character Death's


The battle was beginning to draw to a close now. The rain viscously cut through sound and sight as it washed away the events stored in history, but it couldn't clean the vile stink of blood and death that was so heavy that it could choke me where I stood.

I knew that one day this would happen. I knew that one day I would stand on this mountain in silence and grief as I looked upon the chaos forming below me.

My friends and colleagues were fighting a force that we all knew could not be stopped or slow down. Mother nature herself was at war, as all the elements were thrown around and twisted to destroy the meaning of creation and instead be used for destruction.

Fire. Water. Air. Earth. Every possible use for just the single atoms that made up existence had blasted across the land. Taking the lives of friend and foe alike.

I had the power to change it all but my very state of being prevented it. All I could do was watch and not act.

They had been surrounded now. Our enemies had circled our forces and began to close in as they stepped across and through the blood of the fallen who had given their lives in vain, limbs and faces being trampled into the dirt and disfigured beyond recognition.

I closed my eyes and tried to block out the images swimming through my thoughts of what I could have done. What I could do now. I forced my objecting soul to silence, because I knew that no-one could be saved this night. No-one will go to their homes and families with a new lease on life.

One by one, the ranks fell. Life was torn from the soldiers of glory but they still fought with their hands and teeth. We had all been trained to go down fighting and not let our enemies see us weak. We would all die someday and give our bodies to preserve the fight against darkness but we would leave the world and abandon those who would be slaughtered at a moments whim.

There's a difference between knowing something is going to happen, and actually being there to witness. Dreams of this night had plagued my thoughts for decades before. I remember waking up in cold sweats and shivering in the knowledge that I could change nothing.

Now I'm here though, I had believed that the nightmares would stop and I could finally rest in peace, but the bloodbath occurring in front of my eyes gave me the impression that the painful thoughts were only just beginning. My eternal gift of sight was my eternal punishment for it. My one task in life was to watch, and I will uphold it for millennia to come, but eternal life is not the same as eternal living. While I would remain a constant in the equation of time, everything else will flicker through life and death around me.

I forced myself to watch my people suffer and die. They would never be able to understand and if they saw my unresponsive form now, they would just ask why I wasn't helping them. This was the only solace I could give them. I would see the pain around me and make myself remember it. Remember every face who had walked into the massacre with strength in their eyes. Remember every face that had been struck down with anger and violence.

Every man, woman and...child...had fought with honour and courage that day. Fires had been spread and curses had been cast. Earth and air had struck our enemy, even as the lives of the individuals drew to a close and their lifeless bodies hit the wet dirt. The forces were too strong though and their numbers had been too great. We took them on like like powerful cliffs against a relentless sea, but even the mountains themselves are worn down eventually and the sea will always be there to destroy would stood up instead.

I gripped my black cloak tightly as it was cast around in the thunder and the grand finale I had seen so many times came to its crescendo. All but Merlin McCoy and Warden Dresden were left in the centre of the battlefield, surrounded by legions and armies of the things we all had sworn to protect the world against. Their clothes had been shredded beyond recognition and their hair had plastered to their faces from the sweat of battle and the never ending rain.

Faced with unbeatable odds though, they held their ground and stood back to back, protecting each other with faith and trust that were so rare in today's world. They shouted out words that only held meaning to them, as their minds and hands rained death on the forces around them. Ranks upon ranks of monsters tried to end their sparks but still they held on, no longer fighting for their own lives, but for the awareness that they will have taken one more abomination of life with them to their graves.

It would be so easy for me to help them now. With renowned power, I could have soared over the battle and defended them. I could have released all the rage and pain that I had kept inside me during the many times I saw someone die and did not act.

I could have killed them all.

I couldn't do it.

I wasn't allowed to save anyone.

With a large sweep, the carriers of death surged forward and buried the two wizards in a pile of armoured bodies. I forced my sight through the soldiers. Passing through inhuman organs and distorted weapons. The two greatest wizards I had ever had the privilege of meeting were still fighting. They were on their hands and knees in a futile effort to avoid being crushed by the ever growing pile of their enemy on top of them but were weakened over and over again as swords and magic were forced into and through their bodies.

The two friends looked into each others eyes with an unwavering sense of strength and the magic inside them was piled one on top of the other. With grimaced faces, they watched each other die and the power they had held within them was released in a white hot fury

I was forced to draw back into my own head and I fell to my knees in the mud as the two death curses were released simultaneously. I had always known that the force would be great, but my eyes were brought to tears after seeing such immense power used in the name of good against evil. White fire erupted from the epicentre in a wave of heat and energy. I gladly took in the screams of rage and pain that were momentarily shouted from the voices of our enemy, before their bodies and souls were destroyed in a single moment.

Hundreds died in the first second...

Thousands more in the next...

There was always evil left though...

Over and over again, I slammed my curled fists into the ground as what remained of my enemy split away from the battle and back into the Nevernever. The thunder carried away my screams of protest that I had directed to myself for refusing to do anything.

To never doing anything.

With no energy left, I allowed myself to fall flat into the ground as the burden of my water logged cloak held me down. Until the end of existence, I will have to watch this struggle between good and evil over and over again and add more faces to the blackboard in my mind where I remembered all the people who I had let down and watched die.

I tensed up to prepare myself as I slipped into sleep. The human imagination is only the tip of the possibilities that a persons mind can dream of. I was retreating now into a world full of grief and pain, loneliness and guilt.

In my ignorant, honour filled self, I had chosen to become the Gatekeeper.

I will suffer to the end because of it.


End file.
